Awn/ OS X Dock Backgrounds
Leoparddocks.com has a great collection of dock backgrounds that can be used both for Leopard and Awn. Thanks to Triberious on the Awn forums for pointing them out.
I found some additional textures for Awn on this website. Some of the nicer ones are below.
Leopard, Mac4Lin, and “The Quest For The Perfect Theme”
Note: If you’d like to just get to the good stuff then skip down to here.
Ubuntu Linux with Mac4Lin
Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard is scheduled to be released in about 24 hours. One of Leopard’s key features is a much improved gui and design that has been hailed by many as revolutionary.
Mac users and Apple shareholders are obviously thrilled. Apple’s stock has reached a high of $185 after the last quarter’s earnings were announced on Tuesday.
In addition to owning an iMac and being a shareholder, I’m also a passionate Linux user. I began dual booting Tiger and Ubuntu a few months ago. Recently, I’ve began to use Ubuntu as my main os, and I now only reboot into Tiger on limited occasions. My next computer will still be a Mac but the first thing I’ll do when I get it will be to install Linux.
There are advantages to both operating systems, and I’ll admit that Linux isn’t for everyone. OS X has a wonderful gui and works right out of the box, whereas Linux is more powerful but it doesn’t “just work” out of the box- er off the live cd.
For a while, I’ve been looking for a sleek theme for Ubuntu. The default “Human” look is nice, but it gets dull after a while. I used Ubuntu SE (I’m the maintainer for ppc) for a time but it was a bit too fiery for me. When I got tired of Ubuntu SE, I began to switch between a few other themes. I used Aurora Looks for a brief period of time but, as much as I liked it, it was simply too slow for me. Recently, still not satisfied, I just switched back to the default “Human” theme.
Now that Leopard is coming out, a few Linux users (myself included) have been eyeing OS X a bit jealously. However, there’s no longer any reason to feel left out. The open source project “Mac4Lin” brings Leopard’s killer looks to Linux. Mac4Lin includes a gtk theme, an icon set, desktop backgrounds, gdm login themes, and other eyecandy goodness. Mac4Lin 0.3 was released yesterday and can be downloaded here. The installation is relatively straightforward, but it could be simpler. I’m going to package Mac4Lin into a deb package for easy installation later on this week. Here’s a screenshot:
In summary: Linux users can now enjoy the best of both worlds thanks to the Mac4Lin project. Enjoy!
Two Open Source Gems
I know that lately, I haven’t blogged much about anything. I’ve been dealing with problems on my server, and in most of my free time I’ve been playing around with Linux. This week, for the first time since I downloaded Ubuntu Linux a few months ago, I spent more time using Linux then Mac OS X. I rebooted into OS X only twice. Both times, I felt a certain feeling of loss.
I think that most of my future posts are going to be about Linux and not as much about Apple related topics. Therefore, I’d like to write at least one more post that applies to all operating systems. For once, I’m even going to include Windows users.
Anyway, the following two open source games are a ton of fun. They both run on OS X, Linux, and Windows.
SuperTux
SuperTux bears a strong resemblance to SuperMario. It has decent graphics and fun gameplay like the original Mario. You can download it here.
Wormux
Have the mascots of your favorite open source apps battle off in the Wormux arena. Using dynamite, grenades, baseball bats, bazookas, and more, exterminate your opponent in a 2D toon style scenery and a funny environment. You can download it here.
About Me
20 year old undergrad in CS & Physics, co-founder of Freeversation, faux CEO of Politician Market, and former software developer at Check Point.
I am interested in social startups, information security, and robotics. Read more about me
Contact
Email aantny [at] gmail [dot] com. If it's interesting, I can code it.